“Thank you, ma’am.”
Divya nodded once and left.
???
The rumors didn’t vanish overnight. They lingered, stubborn and dramatic, feeding on speculation and slow news days.
Then, as Mumbai rumors always did, they began to thin.
A starlet’s leaked chat appeared, screenshots full of indiscretion.
A director was accused of copying a Korean script frame by frame.
A producer’s company came under investigation.
The machine moved on to fresher meat.
But Vikram’s PR team didn’t leave it to chance. Two more carefully worded statements. Three public appearances with Riya spaced strategically across ten days.
Coordinated outfits at a charity gala. Coordinated smiles at a film premiere. Coordinated proximity at a restaurant with perfect sight lines for photographers.
The headlines adjusted obediently:
“Vikram and Riya: Stronger Than Ever After False Rumors”
“Golden Couple Laugh Off Baseless Speculation”
Each article included the same photo. Vikram’s hand at Riya’s waist, her head tilted toward his shoulder, both smiling at some shared joke the camera had captured.
Divya saw them. All of them. On her phone. On news sites she told herself she wasn’t checking. On the entertainment channels playing in the college canteen.
She looked at each photo with the same careful blankness she’d perfected over four months. Professional assessment. Nothing more.
She did not think about how his hand rested differently on Riya’s back. Higher. More casual. Less like he was anchoring something precious.
She did not think about how his smile in those photos was the public one. The one that never quite reached his eyes.
She did not think about any of it.
By the third week, her name had slipped from bold type to footnote to nothing. The gossip sites moved on. The building WhatsApp group found new scandals. Mrs. Apte’s daughter’s engagement, the broken elevator on fourth floor, the water shortage last Tuesday.
Her mother stopped checking her phone every ten minutes.
Aditya returned to hostel armed with a story that grew less impressive by the day.
Life resumed its familiar scale.
Except it hadn’t. Not quite.
Because Divya had learned something she couldn’t unlearn: people would always see her as the girl who didn’t belong in Vikram Khanna’s world.
Even when, especially when, she was standing right beside him.
And Vikram had learned something equally uncomfortable: defending Divya publicly meant lying about what he’d felt in that moment by the car.
The way his hand had settled at her back without thought.
The way he’d leaned in because she’d looked small and overwhelmed in a room full of people who made her feel invisible.
